


Dead End

by atbunda



Category: Mamamoo, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Blood and Injury, F/F, I'll add more tags as i go, M/M, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-06-04 16:03:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6665170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atbunda/pseuds/atbunda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been 23 years since the apocalypse. A community of people who were immune and lived through it find a place and rebuild a university. The story follows three best friends, Yoongi, Taehyung and Byulyi, a new generation of people, who hadn't lived in the world before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so this was born from a zombie au idea I had. I thought about the best possible way that humanity could live after such a tragedy and how the young generation, who didn't live in the world before would deal with everything it throws at them.  
> I incorporated both BTS and Mamamoo, because I love them and I usually miss the female characters in M/M fanfics and vice versa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not going to be written in first person! It's only the first few paragraphs!!

“It happened 23 years ago. What we know for sure, is that it was a biochemical weapon that works only on humans. The US wanted to use it against North Korea in 2016, but the plan didn’t go that well. To be more precise, the weapon is a mutagen, released by a virus, which my grandmother was studying for years before the weapon was used. It causes the cells to mutate, forming cancers and an incredibly strong, nearly impenetrable immune systems as well as immortality (meaning they don’t age anymore, but you can kill them by damaging their hearts or destroying their brains). The mutagen later spreads through to others by bodily fluids, such as saliva, sweat or blood. It doesn’t take much of it to get the mutagen inside your body, but outside of a carrier, it disintegrates easily.”

“Even though the time it takes the cancer to develop depends on the individual, after it’s there it usually takes about a week or two for it to metastasise. Sure, cancers do that all the time. However, that mutagen is unique in a way that the cancer cells always metastasise only to the brain, while after metastasis, the strong immunity works to destroy the tumour that starts it all.”

“More precisely, the disease’s second target is the pre-frontal cortex. The tumour would become so big that it would completely diminish one’s personality and complex decision making (at first). In fact, in a short amount of time it would destroy all the functions that makes us people. Basically, cancer meant zombies. The ones like from the films, my grandma always talks about.”

“Only a small portion of the population had a gene that made them immune (the white blood cells would immediately “eat up” the mutagen) to what proved to be the most potent biochemical weapon. The immunity is definitely caused by a dominant gene. “You see, Yoongi, it’s sort of like the one for Huntington’s”, my grandma would try explaining to me, “because it’s inherited in the same pattern, but it’s not very common among the people.”.”

“To be honest, my dad says that even when we were still traveling from one place to another (the first two years, until I was about four years old) we hadn’t met as many survivors as we thought we would. The gene is that rare. Grandma always tells me how at first it seemed like there were so many of what seemed like survivors, however, the cancer got them eventually. The metastasis is a relatively slow process, but only in terms of the fact that you can see the person gradually developing the symptoms right before your eyes. If it’s slow enough, you can also notice the desperation they feel after they realise what’s happening. It’s heart wrecking.”

“For the past 21 years we have been living in this former university. I could say I grew up here. It’s relatively safe and new. It has a yard that can only be reached from the inside of the school (this is where we grow some of our food). The building is sealed off by a huge metal fence and there are two gates that lead outside, they are always manned by at least 2 people each.”

“Since the university was for natural sciences, there are a lot of labs. There, my grandma and the people she taught test people for the gene that is linked to immunity. Since every one of the 534 people does their fair share of work. The ones, who aren’t really immune or have a lower amount of base pair repeats for the gene (so might be at risk too), work inside. If they develop the cancer eventually, we try to make their last days as enjoyable and comfortable as possible. People who are immune train with some kind of weapons (be it ranged shotguns or just the regular axe). I am one of them. We would either man the gates and fence or go on resource expeditions.”

Yoongi puts down his pencil and the “memoir” he’s been writing “for future generations” (he’s actually writing it for his own enjoyment, “creating art” like he has read in the books from the immensely huge university library only two kilometres away from the main building). He gets up from the bed and dresses himself, taking his guns and machete. Yoongi should probably hurry if he wants to eat before leaving for the week-long resource expedition for building materials, fuel and raiding stores for what’s left of various tools and furniture.

He doesn’t know which one he has been assigned to do, he just hopes it’s the week-long one. The others contain hunting for huge amounts of meat for a few, three-day expeditions, as the cattle they have are not enough to produce food for all of them and the cultivated food isn’t enough in its nutritional value. Or preparing the new safe place to live a long way from here (about a thousand kilometres). It’s a two-month-long expedition where only people with the best survival skills go, since it’s extremely dangerous. They’re rebuilding/clearing the mall that they’ve found a while ago, as it is more sustainable to hold so many people as well as is built near vast fertile lands and a forest (not a very good location for a mall); and putting up a fence from the bricks and building blocks they’ve found in an abandoned factory to keep the zombies out (because being eaten up is not nice). It’s very unprotected and there’s a constant threat of being bitten (or eaten) by a zombie if you’re not careful. To be honest, being bitten by a zombie is still nasty, even if you’re immune to the mutagen, as they carry all sorts of other infectious bacteria in their mouth. Two out of five people usually don’t even come back… but it’s worth the risk, with all the benefits they’ll get when they move.

Yoongi strides down the hall towards the other room complex (it was actually an old auditorium they’ve separated into rooms for two people). He found his roommate’s bed empty in the morning, since he couldn’t remember her coming back to the room at night at all, Yoongi assumed that she’ll be in the other room complex.

Yoongi knocks on the door labelled 93 and carefully opens it. As he expected, the room just reeks of sweat and…ok it just smells of sex… Byulyi is cutely curled up with Seulgi, both still fast asleep. Yoongi gently shakes Byulyi, expecting to wake her up. However, only her girlfriend responds, rubbing her eyes and scrunching her eyebrows up in confusion.

“Byulyi and I are leaving for an expedition in half an hour. Wake her up, I’ll go see which routes we’ve been assigned to.” Yoongi says, trying to convey his (actually non-existent) annoyance through his voice and immediately leaves and heads to the main yard, where the people, who were assigned, are already lining up to get the supplies for their positions.

Yoongi goes to the bulletin board and stands on tip-toes to read the assignments, when he’s scared by Taehyung sneaking up from behind.

“I’ve already checked your route. You’re assigned to do the week-long expedition.” Taehyung sighs “Sadly, I’m not on that list… I’m really disappointed, because I wanted to go somewhere this time, but I got to stay at the wall once more. And you know what’s worse? Nobody wants to switch places!” Taehyung is usually a quiet guy when it comes to expressing his feelings, but if he starts ranting you won’t hear the end of it.

Yoongi decides that a few concerned nods while he pretends to listen will suffice, since he’s not in the mood to communicate with people today. He starts looking for Byulyi’s name on the board. There, just under the name “Two-month Mall Expedition”, he sees it. She’s definitely going to want to switch places with someone, because she wouldn’t want to leave Seulgi for that long. Yoongi ponders a bit about how it must be hard being in a committed relationship with someone you love so deeply and heads back to the room complexes, in hopes that there is still water, preferably warm water, left for a shower.

Everything is powered by people. The training machines, which are occupied almost all the time, bring water from the wells to the reservoirs (it’s also collected from rain, but it’s not the main source). If not enough electricity is generated by those training machines and sun batteries the water doesn’t run in the showers (as the pumps from reservoirs are not working).

Since there are times when there’s not enough electricity, some places are prioritised, like the kitchens, the “hospital” and the labs. Reservoirs are actually used only because they are metal and out in the sun, so less electricity is needed to warm the water up. However, during cold periods the water goes directly from wells into the tubes, and is cut off from reservoirs, as the water might freeze up.

Everyone is actually very conscious about water and electricity conservation, because they know it’s not nice to spend weeks without showering, but it’s Yoongi’s last normal shower before he leaves. He spends a decent amount of time scrubbing himself from any kind of dirt until he finally gets out and heads for his room to get his clothes and books. When he opens the door he sees Byulyi, hugging Seulgi and sobbing into the creek between her shoulder and neck.

“So you’ve already checked where you’re going, I assume…” Yoongi sighs, trying to express as much displeasure and a sort of disappointment in his voice.

Byulyi nods, but Seulgi is the one who answers, “She says that she can’t just leave me, because she’s too scared of never seeing me again… She’s skilled though, she should be fine. Plus, they’ve already put up a fence, so unless there’s some rogue zombies in the mall, it should all be fine…”

“Oh my god… Byulyi, it’s not like you’re attached at the hip.” Yoongi says harshly, while in reality, he’s thinking of how he could possibly help them. He could pull off the two-month long expedition, it’s nothing, just a bit tiring. If Taehyung agrees, he could take the week-long expedition, as he’s not trained enough (more like less disciplined) to go on the “Mall” expedition. This would allow Byulyi to man the wall… Then, everyone’s happy. Yoongi expresses his idea to Byulyi and goes to find Tae.

Now, you might think that Yoongi is trying to distance himself from people or that he doesn’t like them, but it’s not quite true. His friends mean the world to him. It’s just that he doesn’t think others need to know that, because “that would make him vulnerable” (who knows to what though). With that deep care for his friends, Yoongi arranges everything with Taehyung and Byulyi, gets his belongings and supplies for the expedition.

The next thing Yoongi knows, he and the team are driving through the gates with their solar-powered van. He watches his friends as they wave him goodbye. The last time he glances is at the turn. Right at that moment Yoongi sees Seulgi, suddenly grabbing her head and dropping to the ground. He sees Byulyi, with a terrified look on her face, rushing to her girlfriend. He sees this and he can’t do anything. He can just watch as they slowly drive away through the bumpy gravel road into the dark old forest… Yoongi starts thinking that maybe this expedition wasn’t such a good idea after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that there's no other characters yet!  
> Please tell me if I should continue this!!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: There's a paragraph, which contains well...blood. It's in the third part of the story when Yoongi meets a new character and their story is being told. It's like 1-2 paragraphs. There are also death mentions, but you probably already figured that.
> 
> Hii!  
> I hope you like this chapter! It's really long considering how I don't know how to write anything more than 2000 words... It just came out like that..
> 
> P.S. the story is not linear from this point on

They have been driving through the woods for over two hours. The car cannot reach more than a hundred kilometres per hour and they are driving on a pretty shitty gravel road, so they could not move at full speed even if they wanted. They are at least half the way there, but nobody is rushing. Yoongi still feels confused about what happened to Seulgi to just collapse like that.

The road has been oddly free of zombies, so Yoongi takes out his journal (or as he likes to call it – his memoir). He does not want to think about his friends now. He just needs to write. For the future generations if not for his own emotional health. He does not exactly know what to write but he decides on something basic, to get his mind off Byulyi, and takes his pencil out.

It does not really matter if the writing will not be that comprehendible, because he will rewrite everything into a book with blank pages he found when he was rummaging through old books in a bookstore they were looting.

“I can’t exactly remember us finding the university, because I was only four years old, but my grandma always tells me that when they had just found the community it was small. Maybe 200 people, not more. Everything was just starting off. People were trying to figure out how to live in such communities making their own everything, because they lived as if camping earlier.”

“It was difficult at first, everyone was so different. There were a few things that helped them survive. First was how lucky they were to find some engineers, teachers, chemists, doctors, trained military people and even farmers in their community or on looting missions. Second, was a huge university library they found near the university building they lived in. It was full of books about anything ranging from how to make solar panels to dictionaries to various works of fiction.”

“The knowledge that we had led us to build a community. We built our own ways to generate electricity. We found cars which were repurposed to run on electricity generated by solar panels, because it was too hard to find fuel they have used before “the end” happened. We taught the children what we know about the world. But we were just lucky.”

“I was lucky. When I got here it wasn’t a new start for me. I was a child when it all started, it was ~~n’t~~ easy for me. This is my world. I didn’t have to adjust to any changes, because I grew up here. While growing up I didn’t need to lose friends to the disease ~~, but I lost a lot of them to other things~~. The only person I actually lost was my mum, but I was only six years old. I cried a lot back then, but I ~~couldn’t~~ got over it. To be honest, I can’t even remember her that well and I guess her death doesn’t really bother me, since I don’t think I could’ve done anything to help her. People would call me heartless for that, but it’s not healthy to grieve my whole life.”

“Our generation understands the inevitability of death and mostly accepts someone’s death after a short time. I think that this has helped our current situation to improve immensely. In fact, the reason we are rebuilding the mall we found a few months ago is because our population started growing rather rapidly. The rooms were starting to get stuffy and the land less fertile. At least half of us needed to move and Gain's found a perfect place for that.”

“We’re still going to be one community though; we’ll still need to move in-between the university, its library and the mall.”

Yoongi suddenly feels the car come to an abrupt stop. He puts his journal and pencils back inside his bag. He can only look through the side windows, since he’s sitting in the back. Looking through the window Yoongi sees vast grass fields and an edge of a fence. He sighs when he hears a familiar voice yelling something what sounds like “Open the gates, they’re here!”

“Well, this is gonna be an adventure…” Yoongi mumbles, rolling his eyes.

 

* * *

 

One moment Byulyi is waving goodbye to Yoongi, who is leaving for the expedition. The other, she feels Seulgi’s grip on her waist loosen as Byulyi sees her grab her head with both hands and collapse. Byulyi suddenly forgets everything in this world as she rushes to Seulgi. Byulyi checks her girlfriends pulse, only to see that there is none. Tears swell up in her eyes. She can barely see anything. She starts hyperventilating and shaking Seulgi’s lifeless body.

 _“This can’t be happening.”_ Byulyi thinks. “She can’t just die! SHE CANNOT BE DEAD!” she is screaming now. Byulyi’s heart is beating so rapidly it is physically hurting. She feels like she will soon suffocate. She cannot stop sobbing, while she holds Seulgi in her hands and hides her face in the creek of her girlfriend’s shoulder.

Taehyung, despite Byulyi’s kicking, rips her away from Seulgi’s body. Byulyi gives up, sitting on the ground. She cannot feel anything anymore. She cannot even feel her own loud sobbing, while the tears are pouring out of her eyes and wetting all her clothes. Byulyi watches Taehyung cover Seulgi with his sweater, lift her limp body from the ground and head for the infirmary.

Byulyi just sits there, hugging her legs and rocking back and forth as people pass her, getting on with their daily tasks. Nobody seems to even notice her. It is not an unusual sight to see someone in a position like that. People die all the time here and nobody cares anymore for people, whose loved ones died. It is nearly daily that something like this happens and everyone knows that this is not their business. Others will take care of that person. It is not their job to do that.

Thinking about how her shift starts only after two hours, Byulyi gets up. She still cannot see anything through her tears, but she knows the way by heart so it is not that hard. She climbs up the ladder to the roof, feeling a bit unstable. The roof, among all the solar panels, is where she always goes, when she wants to think, or cry for that matter.

Byulyi sits up at her usual place on the edge of the roof. Nobody can see her there and it is relatively safe, as there is another building not far below.

Byulyi comes here nearly every day, to think about her life. Sometimes she just silently stares at the sun setting over the ruins of what she thinks was called Seoul, wondering about all the lives that were lost when the pandemic hit. It must have been so terrible to experience whole societies crumbling in front of your eyes. Byulyi thought about that and felt happy. She had decided long ago that she is glad that she practically cannot remember anything from that time. Only bits and pieces. And even those are too vague for Byulyi to understand how she felt then.

However, most of the time, when Byulyi is on the roof, she spends talking to herself about her day. It is like her own, non-written diary.

Today she feels completely numb, as she tries to wrap her head around the idea that she has just lost Seulgi.

Byulyi thinks that nobody can hear her when she talks about her day, but little does she know that a certain engineer has, in fact, noticed her and now comes here to carry out, definitely too frequent, random solar panel check-ups.

The engineer has been doing this for almost over a year now, checking up on the interesting, pretty girl on the roof and trying to muster up the courage to talk to her. This time is not an exception either. Yongsun comes up to the roof for her (now) regular solar panel check. This time she is confident she can strike up a conversation with the cute girl. Yongsun can finally ask her name and stop referring to her as ‘the girl on the roof’, because Wheein and Hyejin are starting to doubt that ‘the roof girl’ is even real. After Yongsun checks the solar panels, she heads towards the usual spot in hopes of managing to summon up enough confidence to finally approach the girl.

 _“God damn it, Yongsun, you’re a grown-ass woman… you shouldn’t be scared of a person, who hasn’t even done anything to you!”_ she thinks, to boost her self-esteem while walking there.

Yongsun reaches the ‘special spot’, raises her head and comes to an abrupt stop. She can only see the ‘the roof girl's’ back, but it is obvious she is crying from how she is trembling. Yongsun stands in place some more only to hear the ‘the roof girl’s’ sobbing get louder.

 “You’ve said you’d talk to her today.” Yongsun mumbles to herself. “I know she’s crying and it’s very unusual…” she tells herself, thinking about how she has only seen ‘the roof girl’ _laughing_ to tears with her friends, the few times she caught a glimpse of her in the canteen.

Yongsun spends the next few minutes debating with herself and trying to plan out every possible way all of this might turn out.

“Well, it’s either now or never…” she decides and marches down towards the girl sitting on the edge of the roof.

 

* * *

 

Yoongi steps out of the van as soon as they enter through the gates. He watches Son Gain as she excitedly, but rather slowly, climbs down the watchtower. If Yoongi did not know, he would not notice the slight limping in her walk as she strides up to the crew.

Gain cut her leg (well, nearly), when she realised she had a tumour there. She was not scared of admitting that she will ‘die’ from it just as her parents did at the beginning of everything, oh no! Gain just thought that if the cancer progression is already slower for her, she might as well slow it down even more. So when she felt something weird in her shin about two years ago and Yoongi’s grandma diagnosed cancer, Gain decided that the metastasis will be slowed down if she got rid of the whole left leg up to her knee. Gain could not give up after all this time. She had gone so far. The only way she was going to go down was ‘guns blazing’, Gain decided.

One thing led to another and Gain was sitting on the operating table in the infirmary, biting down on a huge piece of cloth, tears swelling in the corners of her eyes as Min Yoongi’s grandmother saw Gain’s leg off, while Yoongi and a few others that worked in the infirmary was dealing with the excessive bleeding.

To be honest, everyone was amazed how Gain was still conscious after the operation, considering she was only given a very small amount of strong analgesics that the chemist managed to synthesise with limited resources.

When Gain finally approaches the crew she smiles, greeting each of them, her glance staying on Yoongi's eyes a bit longer. He wonders if he notices a glint of sadness in her eyes, but dismisses it thinking he is just imagining things.

Yoongi's relationship with Gain has always been complicated. They trust and respect each other deeply, nonetheless, they do not seem to get along very well. Gain and Yoongi argue every chance they get.

From the side, they always look like one is going to kill the other soon, since both of them are incredibly stubborn and neither wants to admit they are wrong. Underneath all that, however, they are good friends. Do not get me wrong, they still fight like dogs. Passively at first, smiling as a warning to not 'go there' through their teeth and then basically throwing punches a moment later. Son Gain and Min Yoongi just have too different the personalities to get along like normal people do.

Despite these fights they have, they know one another very well. Gain knows one makes Yoongi tick, while Yoongi has the honour of knowing Gain's whole life story. They basically share their deepest secrets and if you are very close to both of them you would probably be convinced they are best friends. And you would probably be right.

Gain retreats to a few metres from the group and starts talking.

“As you’ve all been in informed, you'll be here for two whole months. Since we still have lots of work to do and it's all different, you'll be assigned roles according to your abilities and preferences. You'll start working the day after tomorrow, when the other groups leave back for the main living grounds. You have one day to look around the area.” Gain subtly sighs as she shifts from one leg to another. Yoongi can see her eyebrows briefly scrunching up, as if Gain suddenly forgot what she wanted to say, until she continues a moment later.

“The dinner for you is when the main clock on that wall shows 11 pm. The canteen is in the first floor's southern hall” she says pointing to a huge clock, seemingly powered by solar panels, just as most of the things here. “That’s more than an hour from now, so Wheein here can show you to the room complexes on the fourth floor. You can pick any free room you want there. That’s all for now.” Gain finishes explaining and waves everyone off simultaneously starting for the gate.

Yoongi, finding the ‘great leader’ Gain’s speech extremely unusual, ditches the group going for the room complex and tries to catch up with his friend.

“Haven’t seen you in a while.” Gain says with a smirk, as if she already knew Yoongi would go after her.

“Five months, to be exact…” Yoongi answers, “We left for the looting expedition and then, when Tae and I finally came back, you were already gone.”

“Well, I don’t know what else you want from me. I asked Jea to tell you that I found a perfect place during my last expedition for food, but they didn’t let me check it immediately, since it was too big for us three to loot. Hell, we even checked whether the building was still usable, while you were gone. We just had to start the construction as soon as possible.” Gain nervously runs her hand through her hair.

Yoongi finds it weird how irritable she has been since they arrived. Though he decides that it would not be very tactful to straight-out ask her.

Yoongi is suddenly distracted from his thoughts by Gain’s voice. “You coming in or not?” She is standing at an open door that leads to a small wooden shack near the gate. Yoongi did not notice the door, nor the nearby windows before. He thought that the shack was only so that the guards could have firm, high ground from where they could observe the surroundings of the gate.

Yoongi’s eyes go over the interior of the shack. There is a huge wooden table covered in maps and papers, with at least 18 chairs around it. Suddenly he catches a glimpse of an empty plate and a mug on the table as well as a bed in the far left corner of the shack.

“Do you _live_ here?!” He exclaims.

Gain sighs, rubbing the bridge of her nose as she sits down on one of the chairs, finally extending her prosthetic leg.

“And you have a problem with that? I sleep here, because I constantly have business with the guards. It’s more convenient than them looking for me in an area of a hundred hectares.” She seems unusually annoyed.

“So…anyway, how’s your leg?” Yoongi asks, feeling awkward.

He has not seen Gain so worked up since she had to learn how to walk with her wooden prosthetic, but kept falling everywhere for a few weeks.

“I’m sensing there’s something else you want to ask. You’ve been looking weird at me since I’ve first started talking.” Gain retorts at Yoongi’s poor attempt at ‘small-talk’.

Yoongi sighs. Gain can see right through him, there is no point in hiding what he wants to say. They talk about everything.

“You wanted to ask about why I seem so stressed, didn’t you?” Yoongi gives a slight nod as Gain continues.

“I don’t know what’s happening, to tell you the truth.” She says under her breath, her face relaxing from its annoyed state. 

“I’ve been like this for a few weeks now and, to be honest, I’m fearing the worst…”

“You mean?..” all of the usual coldness is gone from Yoongi’s face when he talks to Gain. Right now it is replaced by empathy, as if he knows what his friend will say.

“I’ve not been myself, it’s been hard for me to make decisions and so on… what else could it be? I didn’t think it would catch up with me this fast, though.”

Yoongi has never seen Gain this miserable. She seemed like she was letting down everyone, Jea, Narsha, Yoongi and, most importantly, herself.

“Does anyone else know?”

“I’m planning to tell the captain of the guard tonight. I called him here, since he’s not on duty tonight.” Gain’s face suddenly lights up in a fake smile. It is a sign that Yoongi should not try to get more information for the time being. “In the meantime, do you want to help me put the groups together?”

Yoongi agrees and they spend the next hour grouping the arrived people according to their abilities and discussing their possible tasks.

“Before we go eat, Yoongi, you know that you’re probably the most competent out of all of these people? In close range combat, I mean.” Gain says calmly, now she seems more like herself.

“I was thinking of forming a new resource group to a nearby brick factory, which I’ve recently found on the map. The previous one that made wooden boards is completely used up. Even the building isn’t there anymore. The new one isn’t scoured yet, so it also might be full of zombies so…”

“What are you getting at?” Yoongi interrupts, impatient, as his stomach is starting to growl.

“I think you should be the one lead the five-person group to the new factory to get supplies.”

 

* * *

 

Taehyung passes the field with Seulgi’s limp body in his hands and heads for the infirmary. His shirt has already fallen off of her and he sees that her lips are already blue, but her body is not completely cold yet. Her eyes are still open and Taehyung sighs looking at them. He does not exactly know how to close them, so he is left with Seulgi’s dead stare directed at his face. Seulgi is not very heavy but the fact that her body is dead, so she is not holding onto Taehyung makes it hard to carry her.

Taehyung walks down a dark hall and kicks the door to the infirmary open. It is probably the only room in the whole university where the light is constant even when the sun has already set.

“I’ve got a body.” he states nonchalantly.

A girl with a heart-shaped face he has not seen before comes up to him and inspects the body instead of Yoongi’s grandma.

“There’s no wounds? How did you kill it then?” she asks, probably thinking it is a dead zombie Taehyung brought for Yoongi’s grandma’s experiments. It was hard to find those who had healthy bodies, so when they did, the bodies were immediately brought to the infirmary for testing.

“I didn’t. One minute she was standing there, saying goodbye to the group that was leaving. The other, she grabbed her head and collapsed.”

Taehyung talks in a monotone voice like he just turned the switch to turn off his emotions. But in reality, Taehyung was used to not reacting to things like that. He would just bottle-up his feelings until he can let them out to someone who can bring themselves to care. In this case, Yoongi is not going to be back for at least two months and Taehyung will have to be a shoulder to cry on for Byulyi, so he cannot exactly use her.

As Taehyung lays Seulgi’s body on the examination table, the girl who greeted him goes into the back, towards the laboratories, to get Yoongi’s grandma.

Taehyung sits there for a while, waiting and trying to push the ball in his throat downwards as he thinks about how devastated Byulyi probably is.

_“And what about Yoongi? Has he seen Seulgi collapse?”_

Taehyung hopes he did not or Yoongi would be very worried for Byulyi. She is like a sister to them after all. They grew up together, being trained by Byulyi’s parents, and taught basic math and reading Tae’s mum, while Yoongi’s grandma told them stories about the world before what she called ‘the end’.

“Hello, TaeTae, how’s my favourite story-teller?”

Taehyung is suddenly woken up from his thoughts and momentarily forgets the dead body behind him as he sees Yoongi’s grandma waddling into the main room and towards the examination table.

“Ah… Grandma Yoona! I’ve missed you so much!” Taehyung says, smiling his signature square smile.

He remembers the times he would come back from practice outside the fence or reading class and excitedly tell Yoongi’s grandma about his day, while she mixed all kinds of weird liquids together in the lab.

“Have you finally changed your mind in helping me with the chemistry part of medicine or do you have something else to show me?” She smiles warmly, pretending not to see the cooling body behind Taehyung.

Taehyung’s smile disappears and he remembers how much happened in the last hour. His face immediately goes stone cold again.

“Seulgi, Byulyi’s girlfriend. She just suddenly grabbed her head, collapsed and died. I don’t know what happened.”

“You know we don’t have the tools that would be appropriate or anything to spare to get a sure diagnosis. If you want answers, I can only guess from the symptoms that it was a haemorrhagic stroke, but I don’t for sure or what could’ve caused it. If she was showing weird behaviour it might’ve been a tumour in her brain or, for all we know, it could’ve been genetic. Does she have any family here?” Yoongi’s grandma asks, scrunching up her eyebrows in concern.

“No. She came here with her dad, but he died after like a month here.”

 “At least we won’t have to break the news to anyone from her family. Her death won’t cause that much pain.” Yoona sighs with relief, but as she continues her face contorts into something akin to grief and concern.

“Now, you should probably go find Byulyi if you can. I know she plays strong, but she never deals with stressful situations well. She’s probably hiding, crying somewhere…poor thing…”

“She will want to know what happened.” Taehyung nods and starts to leave the infirmary, letting workers to deal with the dead body as they always do, until he is stopped by something grabbing his wrist tightly.

He turns around, tears already brimming in his eyes. The girl with the heart-shaped face is behind him, smiling warmly.

“We’ll be burying her at about 6 pm, when people have eaten dinner. As always. You can come say goodbye. And if your friend wants to see her for the last time, she can come here until about 4 pm, that’s when Minho comes here with our herbs and…” she hesitates and Taehyung prepares himself, because he knows what she’s going to say, he has spent enough time experimenting here and at the laboratory to know the routine. “…and the body bags from the storehouse.” She smiles a concerned smile and lets Taehyung go.

Taehyung goes on to look for Byulyi in her favourite places.

_“She never handles stress well…where does she go when she’s stressed?”_

Taehyung tries to remember where Byulyi could have went, because she certainly did not stay and cry in the middle of the field by the fence. _“Or did she?”_. Taehyung decides to check that, because _“what if?”_.

After looking around there and then, for some reason, in every bigger tree, he heads for Seulgi and Seungwan’s room.

 _“I mean, there is a possibility she’s there, right? She goes there when she’s stressed sometimes. Maybe she’ll want to go there to mope over Seulgi or something…”_.

Taehyung opens the door to the room. There’s no one there, except for the note that seems to be scribbled recently on the blackboard in the room.

_“We need to talk -.-_

_find me in the kitchens as soon as you see this_

_-SW :)”_

Taehyung reads and takes a mental note to inform Seungwan about Seulgi. He feels a bit awkward to have taken the responsibility to give out the news about Seulgi, but he drops that thought as he remembers that Byulyi is probably crying alone somewhere.

Taehyung returns to his room and flops on the old bed. His room is like any other. Two average beds with old mattresses they found while looting. Blankets and pillows out of cloth and feathers from the geese and chickens they keep in the university library’s vacated rooms and garden. Two bed-side tables and two ‘closets’, which were most likely either old cupboards or shelves put together so that people can keep their belongings somewhere. Although Taehyung was proud of his room, since the walls were also lined by various posters or paintings he found or did over the years.

“Where could she be… I need to find and tell her before I leave at 2 pm.” he groans, stretching out on the bed and instantly sitting up, eyes going wide. He remembers how she once mentioned occasionally going up on the roof to think about stuff or look at the scenery.

Taehyung jumps out of the bed and sprints up to the roof. As he finds, it is not as easy as he previously thought to look for Byulyi among all these solar panels, not to mention the huge water tank he has to pass.

Finally, he hears sobbing _“and someone talking?”_. He walks a few more steps to that direction and sees someone sitting by Byulyi.

“Thank you…ummm…I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.” Taehyung hears Byulyi say, sniffling and getting out of a hug.

“Oh my… sorry! I’m Yongsun. But my friends call me Solar, since I’m very invested with solar panels and all…”

“Okay…I’m Byulyi.” There is a faint smile on her swollen face and her eyes seem to sparkle a bit and not from tears.

Taehyung can sense the awkwardness around them, but he decides not to come closer. That Yongsun girl seems to be doing a great job. Besides, he remembers he has wasted so much time looking for Byulyi that he only has some left to find Seungwan. Somehow, even though Byulyi is always the one to take care of Yoongi and him, he trusts that Yongsun will make Byulyi go to the infirmary to inquire about Seulgi.

 _“She will take care of her.”_ Taehyung nods and, abandoning his ‘inform Byulyi mission’ heads for the kitchens.

He easily finds Seungwan there, briefly informs her about Seulgi’s death and hurries to get his things and get to the gate.

The van is already waiting there. He loads his things into the truck and they slowly drive out through the gate. Taehyung hopes that the Yongsun will be able to take care of Byulyi. She is the one, who needs to be taken care of now, not others.

 

* * *

 

Yoongi wakes up as the first ray of light shines through the small window the next morning feeling extremely groggy, his neck hurts and someone is loudly talking outside. Gain and he were discussing various strategies up until late. Yoongi was just resting his head on the table, waiting for Gain to bring tea, when he fell asleep.

Yoongi groans. He lifts his head and looks around only to see that the shack is completely empty. He gets up and heads for the room complexes where he ran over to leave his things yesterday. _“It’s a good thing we don’t have roommates, since we work here. The person would be pissed if I just came in at this hour.”_

Yoongi quickly gets new clothes and the ones that could use a wash and heads for the lake, where people bathe until there’s enough electricity generated to bring the water to the showers that are being built in the rooms that seemed to have been toilets before. He also gets the things, he should bring to the mission Gain assigned him to, into a bundle and places them by the door, so he can take them after washing up, before leaving.

 

\---

 

Yoongi grumpily approaches the group of people lined up before Gain, while nibbling on a bun with chicken meat he got from the canteen while heading to the main yard.

“What’s this? I thought you said five people and I’m counting twelve. That’s way too many.” He mumbles, chewing.

“Good morning to you, too.” Gain smiles. “These are all the people that wanted to join. Now you can choose.”

Yoongi takes it as a compliment to his leadership skills rather than the influence of an interesting mission. He chooses the people after he asks them some questions. The group takes one of the vans and they start for the brick factory.

After an hour of driving west along a paved road they find the factory. It is an old red-brick building. The metal door is barely standing and the windows…well, there are no windows. Those are just some square-shaped holes in the walls.

Before they get out into the fresh, early autumn air Yoongi dictates the plan. He seems proud and excited for his task. Most of his teammates are older than him and have completely different fighting styles but he is quite confident he can manage to be the leader.

“When we first go in we split up in pairs. A close-ranged with a shooter. Kibum you use light throwing knives and Minho you use a heavy axe. You go together. Taemin with your light katana and Jonghyun with his heavy crossbow. I go with Jinki and his longbow. We go in silently, so we can scout the place for zombies and take them by surprise. That means no firing loud guns.” Yoongi glares specifically at Jonghyun, who is currently affectionately hugging Kibum and giving Yoongi his cutest puppy eyes.

“Anyway,” Yoongi continues, rolling his eyes. “Gain told me how the building should roughly be planned out.” Yoongi pulls out some kind of a draft from his bag and explains each pair’s scouting area, one of them being the second floor which is the smallest in the whole factory but contains the most rooms. It is probably where the immediate factory administration worked.

After half an hour of going over the plan of the mission again, they get out of the van and head for the factory. The door silently creaks when Yoongi slowly opens it and after a few seconds they are already inside. It is dark, except from the rays of sunlight that fall through the windows and make the thick dust clouds in the factory visible. The group spends some time to adjust their eyes to the change in lighting.

They see a hall that is not present in Gain’s sketch of the building to their right. Nonetheless, everything else is just as she has drawn. They see a huge room to their left. It is lined with various brick-making machines, ‘mountains’ of unused materials and new bricks, while the kilns are placed in the far back. The metal stairs for the second floor is just a few steps away, a bit to the left. Some steps are missing but they think they will manage to climb up.

Finally, Yoongi signals everyone to split up. He and Jinki move to the room on the left of the factory as the others hurry to their assigned places.

Kibum and Minho scouts what appears to be the locker-rooms, toilets and kitchens. Taemin and Jonghyun are occupied by checking all the rooms on the second floor, and Yoongi and Jinki carefully pass the room towards the kilns for firing bricks.

“It’s unusually quiet here.” Jinki states in a hushed voice after a while.

“You’re right, zombies aren’t that quiet.” Yoongi simply says. But Jinki can see he is still suspicious about something and does not say a word.

Yoongi takes a step towards one of the kilns. He figures he will first inspect them and then they can go back to the door to meet the others.

Yoongi hums in confusion and motions Jinki to come closer when he notices that the kiln is still emitting warmth. That is when they hear a sudden, loud bump coming from behind a door they have not noticed before. It is probably the janitor’s closet. Both stiffen at the sound. Yoongi’s grip on his machete strengthens as they approach the door, Jinki falling a few steps behind. Both are ready to attack.

 Yoongi flips the door open. He hopes to take it by surprise. Yoongi’s hand, holding the machete rises as if by habit and suddenly comes to an abrupt stop, when he hears Jinki yell ‘no’.

Two boys, if you could call them boys when they look at least 20 years old each, are sitting scrunched up. Eyes wide in horror. One is grasping an old kitchen knife.

 _“Zombies would not be capable of doing that.”_ is Yoongi’s last thought before an actual zombie lunges at him from behind a kiln on his left.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Blood in the zombie scene

 “--Kang Seulgi led a short yet happy life. She was a fighter, a lover, but most importantly - a friend.”

 

Jea, one of the leaders of the community, finishes her half an hour long speech like she always does – with a cliché. No one really ever minds that though, since the only people who actually came to the funerals (or rather the lowering of the body bag into the ground just outside the fence) were the ones who were very close to the person. It is too dangerous for some outside the wall, even with the guards. Funerals are not really worth the trouble if you were not extremely close.

 

In fact, right now, the only person who falls out of context is Yongsun. She did not even know Seulgi, but since Byulyi was so upset the whole day she missed her shift at the gate, Yongsun stayed with her the whole time.

 

Yongsun has been hugging Byulyi over the shoulders as the other watched Seulgi’s body being lowered into the hole in the ground and sobbed.

 

The graves are always marked by a young tree that would be planted right after the body is buried. It is not marked in any other way, as nobody really visits individual graves.

 

Nevertheless, there is a tradition followed by people, who believe in spirits, to visit the spinney during mid spring and just after the first frost. It is believed that the spirits lead another life in that period. Some people feel the need to greet and say goodbye (or sometimes even talk) to them, so that the spirits are not angry in their other life period and rest peacefully during the winter. However ridiculous this belief in spirits might sound to some, it has helped a lot of people during their grieving over the years and lessened the amount of suicides for a year to one or two people over the year, since it has become popular.

 

“You can greet her again during the beginning of the bloom, baby.” Yoongi’s grandma suddenly says in a soft voice, coming to Byulyi’s side and stroking her shoulder, just as Yongsun and she are starting to leave the graveyard.

 

Byulyi turns to Yoona, her eyes meeting the other's compassionate look. Byulyi has never been one to actually participate in the unusual rites that most of their community is so hung up on, but right now she thinks she understands their relevance. Nevertheless, she thinks that maybe Taehyung, Yoongi and her newfound relationship will be enough to keep her together.

 

Yet Byulyi nods, feeling Yongsun hugging her harder as they enter through the gate and Yoongi’s grandma waddles the other way, mumbling something about needing to eat, because of that heartburn that never stops.

 

* * *

 

A zombie lunges for Yoongi. They both fall to the ground, Yoongi's machete flying out of his hand and landing a few meters away from him.

 

While everyone's standing around, mouths agape and eyes wide in shock, Yoongi is struggling. One of his hands trying to reach the machete on his left. Beads of perspiration are forming on his forehead.

 

The zombie tries to reach Yoongi’s face. He holds it back by placing his forearm on the zombie’s neck.

 

It seems like the zombie has spent all the time before under a lake. The blood-stained remains of a light, cloth t-shirt and blue, skinny jeans barely cover the zombie’s gross body. The skin is slimy to Yoongi’s touch. In most places, it has already started disintegrating, revealing rotting flesh, filled with maggots, or even raw bone, some of which is fractured. Yoongi is not even sure how the zombie is able to move. The long, black hair, or rather what’s left of it, brushes his face from time to time. They leave trails of some kind of slime on Yoongi’s skin. If Yoongi was not distracted by the attack itself, he would be very disgusted.

 

Fighting would not be this hard if Yoongi was not so shocked about survivors and had his machete. Nonetheless, he thinks that he is managing well so far, considering it has been long since he did actual hand-to-hand fighting using his fists only.

 

The zombie’s hair is brushing too close to his eyes and saliva is starting to drop from its mouth and onto Yoongi’s face. Yoongi closes his eyes for a moment.

 

Yoongi's forearm slips. It thumps on the hard ground, taking a lump of the zombie’s skin with it. The zombie is onto the crook of Yoongi’s shoulder in no time. It bites into the exposed collar bone with its rotten teeth, spreading saliva all over the newly made wound. Who knows what kind of shit it has been carrying in its mouth. The more time passes, the deeper it bites. Some bits of Yoongi’s flesh already being swallowed.

 

Yoongi tries to get the zombie off with his right hand, but only succeeds in removing more tissue from its body. Meanwhile his left hand is completely immobilised from the bite. At that moment he feels helpless. He feels like just closing his eyes and finally slipping away into nothingness. He has, after all, wanted to go away for a long time now.

 

Yoongi suddenly hears a loud bump and the zombie’s body goes limp. Its head rolls over Yoongi’s shoulder and onto the ground, after the jaw loosens its grip on Yoongi’s collarbone.

 

Yoongi glances upwards. One of the boys from the janitor's closet, the one with the puffy face, is holding Yoongi’s machete. His eyes are still wide in shock, but he has finally managed to close his mouth.

 

Just as everyone wakes up from the trance they seemed to have been in, they notice the blood pouring from Yoongi’s shoulder in thick, dark, red streams.

 

“Fuck...shit...thanks.” Yoongi groans, wincing.

 

“No... no problem.” the boy manages to blurt out, through his heavy breathing, staring at the wound on Yoongi’s collarbone in disgust.

 

“We should go find the others and leave. You need immediate help.” Jinki says, shaking his head and blinking faster, as if trying to get rid of the shock.

 

The puffy-cheeked boy stretches out his hand to Yoongi to help him. Yoongi stands up and goes to Jinki, who is carrying the 'first help kit' on his shoulder. Yoongi silently gets the bandage (which is actually nothing but huge, clean, old rag) and swiftly winds it around his shoulder in hopes of stopping the heavy bleeding. Nobody even tries helping Yoongi, seeing his sour face.

 

Yoongi has seen what zombie bites usually do to people’s limbs when he practiced with his grandma in the infirmary. It would rarely heal easily. Actually, most of the time the wound would start rotting or get infected that they could not treat properly with their resources. Gangrenes were also often. Most of the time his grandma just had to amputate the bitten limb.

 

What would Yoongi get amputated if the bite is on his shoulder? It is not like his grandma can separate his head from his body safely or cut out a huge chunk of flesh near his collarbone in a way that Yoongi could live. For now, though, he decides it is not effective to panic. Panic will not bring any good. He just has to go on and hope for the best.

 

“I’m Jimin by the way... And this is Jungkook. He’s not usually this silent.” The boy with the baby face suddenly utters, breaking the silence, and points to his friend, who has been glaring at the weird pair through his overgrown dark hair the whole time.

 

“Ah... I’m Jinki! Nice to meet you and thanks for saving us! I hope you’ll want to come with! We have a very safe community. Everyone’s welcome, really!” the oldest of the four answers first, nodding his head, a wide smile on his face.

 

Jimin glances at Yoongi, expecting words of encouragement or something that would ensure them about the community that Jinki just mentioned. It is not every day that you get invited to join some kind of community. Let alone by people you have just met and are not sure if they are trustworthy.

 

“I’m Yoongi. We have to go.” He says with a serious face (that actually looks more sulky than serious), which is how he tries to hide the fact that the bite wound, that he is pressing his hand on, is hurting.

 

Yoongi starts for the exit, assuming the others heard the commotion and will be passing through there to Yoongi’s and Jinki's help.

 

“Ummm...so can we come with you or...?” Yoongi suddenly hears Jimin say in an unsure but desperate voice.

 

 _“The puffy boy’s too trusting. We just met and he already believes anything we say. Or maybe it’s because they don’t have anywhere else to go…”_ Yoongi thinks, but answers a brief 'yes' to Jimin.

 

 _“God... I feel like Gain today. All bitter and bossy.”_ Yoongi smiles a bit, walking towards the front door, where he already sees the rest of the group waiting.

 

“What happened? And... who are they?” Kibum asks, his eyebrows scrunched up in concern. He glances first at Yoongi’s hand, pressing on the shoulder and then the two boys behind him.

 

“This is Jungkook and Jimin. We found them hiding in the back and then Yoongi got attacked by a stray zombie,” Jinki says. His tone is only partly serious, as if he is not at all fazed by Yoongi’s wound, just concerned for Jungkook and Jimin.

 

“We are going back. I need professional medical help with the bite. You have five minutes to get all you can, so we don’t come back empty handed. But leave space for two more people. They’re coming with us.” Yoongi takes up his leadership position again and starts barking orders, assuming that there is only two new people (it is safe to assume that, since they did not mention anyone else, right?). He needs to distract himself from the pain somehow.

 

Everyone gathers all they can in those few minutes and head to the car with the two boys they have found.

 

* * *

 

They’ve been driving for over an hour now. Taehyung does not remember going this far for looting before.

 

 _“Maybe we’ve run out of places to loot nearby?”_ he thinks, carelessly.

 

The scenery is nice, however. Warm, early autumn air is still allowing the mountains to be covered a blue-ish green pattern for just a bit longer, before it changes to soft shades of yellow and brown.

 

Most of the loot, Taehyung thinks about what he saw on the roof and how maybe, just maybe, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship for all of them. Sometimes he wonders about how Yoongi might be doing, but he does not really worry how he will take the news about Seulgi. They have never been very good friends. To be honest, he just feels troubled about Byulyi.

 

The whole expedition is sort of boring. They go in, they go out. They can barely find anything still usable and most places are full of zombies. The group does stumble upon a used-to-be-fancy alcohol shop. Before they pack the strong drinks for disinfection, Taehyung manages to smuggle two bottles in his own bag, hoping no one will notice. Other than that, the mission goes through without any huge fights, only a few clearings of minor mobs of zombies in and near the looting centres do.

 

Taehyung is sort of disappointed on the ride back home. He expected more action. Maybe more actual fighting, rather than sneaking and surprise attacks. But he cannot say he is not happy for going. He is glad. After all, it is better than standing on the gate all day and checking for any strays.

 

* * *

 

The two months in the mall completely flew by. Yoongi's shoulder has not really been healing but it should be fine. The wound does not seem to have any infection and even though it has not started to properly clot yet, Yoongi is not losing that much blood anymore. Or at least the local doctor has been saying that for the past few weeks. Just enough to convince everyone else (Yoongi still had to have daily check-ups, where the wound would be disinfected and re-bandaged, though).

 

Jimin and Jungkook, the two boys 'from the janitor's closet', have been adapting to the work and the community well. The whole time, apart from when they would be working at the rooms that are still under construction, they would spend with Wheein, Gain's assistant, practicing reading, writing or math. Apparently, since Jungkook's parents died six years ago, they did not have any chances at all to do any of that, so they eventually forgot how to read, not to mention write. But with help of others and the books that people brought here for entertainment, they were doing really well.

 

Sometimes Yoongi would be neither busy (with his various looting missions' strategizing), nor in that mood of grumbling angrily of how 'the puffy boy' (that is how he occasionally calls Jimin) is 'always annoyingly hanging around him and asking stupid questions' (no one is buying that Yoongi is actually angry at that). In that case, he would call Jimin and Jungkook to the main yard so that, together with Hyejin, he could teach them defence/attack techniques.

 

This kind of training would usually end with Jungkook and Hyejin finally meeting Wheein and going to have dinner, while Yoongi and Jimin skip it, because they would be too involved in a book. Well, Yoongi would be too involved in explaining his interpretation of the book to Jimin. The latter, on the other hand, just liked to listen to Yoongi as he excitedly explained how he thought that the abundance of yellow colour (and especially the flowers) when master and Margarita met was actually the foreshadowing of their relationship and Margarita’s relationship with her husband.

 

If Yoongi did not end up hanging out with Jimin after the training, they would all go to dinner together. There, Jungkook and Yoongi would 'bond' over the weekly meat skewers, while Jimin and Hyejin chatted about her interest in singing. Wheein was not usually there, she would quickly eat, softly peck Hyejin's cheek and hurry to finish helping Gain manage everything.

 

Everything has sort of become a routine over the two months.

 

"You know you're completely welcome to stay here if you want to. You'd be a great addition to the 20 people who are living here permanently." Gain says looking at Jimin and Jungkook, who have come with Yoongi to personally say goodbye before leaving.

 

Jungkook is still shy in front of Gain, so he does not answer. As usual, he just stares through his, now a bit shorter, bangs to Jimin.

 

"Ah... Thank you, really... but Jungkook and I, we want to learn to do something besides building, you know? And we think that the university would be a great place to do that." Jimin says, flashing a shy smile and rubbing his neck.

 

Yoongi thinks that he also notices Jimin briefly glancing at him, but dismisses it. He has been 'noticing' this a lot, but really that is probably just his mind playing tricks on him, since it wants to receive those glances. Yoongi has noticed that his heart starts racing every time his eyes meet with Jimin's or if Jimin says something nice to him, after which he just craves more of that kind of attention from him.

 

 _“Seriously? Do I have some kind of crush?"_ Yoongi would think.

 

It is not like he has never had a crush. Well at least not that kind. He has had 'crushes' in the past that were just basic attraction without all the 'wanting a romantic relationship' stuff. And in all actuality he never even understood how people would want one in the first place when they had friends. Yoongi does not really understand it right now either, but he knows he is feeling something new, so he thinks he should just see where it leads.

 

"Anyway, we should finish this tea fast so we can leave in time to be back when it's still light." Yoongi finally says after a few minutes of comfortable silence.

 

They finish their teas chatting between themselves and stand up to go to the gate. Except for Gain, who just shifts in her seat and clears her throat. She has a serious look on her face.

 

"Jimin, Jungkook, you go. I need to talk with Yoongi for a bit." she says.

 

They both go out, as ordered, and decide they might as well wait for them with everybody else by the gate. They are leaving soon after all.

 

Besides, Gain often wants to speak to Yoongi privately. Or at least they think she always does, because she always did since they got there. Jimin thinks it is kind of suspicious of their constant private conversations, he is pretty sure that something is happening, but he is not exactly sure what, so he just decides that it would be best for him not to think about it. If Yoongi wanted him to know, he would tell him.

 

They drop the little cloth bags, they have fit their very few personal belongings in, on the scarce grass, so they can sit on them and wait for Yoongi so that the whole group can finally leave.

 

After Yoongi comes back (Gain following just behind him), he looks visibly concerned and even angry. Yoongi does not even say a word to Jimin and Jungkook as he passes them and throws his things into the backseat of one of the vans, gets in and slams the door as he sits down in one of the seats.

 

He is not interested in Gain’s not-so-lengthy goodbye speech. She cannot say a lot anymore, or at least not as much as she did say a year ago. Yoongi knows her warm smile and words are just a façade for her actual feelings and he is not interested for what she has to say now. He decides not to care that her I’ll-wait-for-you-here-next-time’s that she is telling the group are only partly true.

 

All the way home, Yoongi does not say a word to the jittery boys by his side, only scribbling something in his journal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading ;-;
> 
> The chapter would've been up faster but I was struggling with the first scene. Also, I realise that there isn't enough moonsun, which really bugs me. I do, however have moonsun things planned for the further chapters...


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